


Super-Sargasso Sea

by prowomptowo



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Hurt/Comfort, Insecurity, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, possibly emotionally abusive ex relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-06
Updated: 2018-03-06
Packaged: 2019-03-27 18:23:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,742
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13886517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prowomptowo/pseuds/prowomptowo
Summary: Shiro's experiences with dating as a veteran have told him that his symptoms are bad. Frightening even. That the parts of himself he fears are ugly, warped, and unlovable. Bothersome.Keith offers something more transcending and stable.





	Super-Sargasso Sea

**Author's Note:**

> a short one shot bc my ptsd has been getting bad and letting yourself accept that people love you is tough.  
> this isn't my main acct, if you want it lemme know. just dont want anyone to blast me for the sheith.

Dating has never been easy for Shiro.

Before the war, and before he lost everything (his arm, his sanity, his peace of mind), he'd never dared to date _anyone_. There was too much fear involved for him, to trust himself completely over to another person. He managed by himself just fine. He had friends. Really, that was all he needed.

After the war, however, his therapist urges him to get out more and meet new people. What better way to assuage his fears of never being loved than by opening himself up to others? Slowly, he reminds himself, he can do it slowly. Then, maybe, if he finds someone who's interested in him, maybe he'd... Give it a shot. Even through the paralyzing anxiety at the thought of his hang-ups and the trouble they'd likely cause him.

Communication, his therapist relays. Communication is the key.

Despite this advice, Shiro finds himself torn up and trapped in the abyss of his past. The abyss of his own mind. And for a while, things really, really do not work out between him and _anybody_.

Then, he finds Keith.

\--

Their first date is the work of none other than Pidge, his friend's little sister. She badgers Matt for weeks about his apparently "rugged, dorky looking friend" and how she knew someone who would be _perfect_ for him (she followed this with a "Well, he's a little moody, and a little emo, but I _swear_ they'd be probably at LEAST a little decent for each other."). Shiro has his doubts, especially after his last experiences with dating since he came back. 

He talks to his therapist and his friend Allura a good deal about it, and they both conclude that staying afraid of dating would do nothing for him. Shiro's heart, still feeling all scrunched up in his chest at the idea, aches. How could a man like him, who has panic attacks when a car backfires, who screams when he has nightmares, ever be loved? Past experience now proved that it might not be that easy, that he may never find someone that understanding.

Pidge swears up and down, however, that she knows her friend is different. _And_ that he apparently thought he was hot. Shiro had blushed at that, touched the scar on his nose as an afterthought, and wondered if that would change the moment this guy saw his arm. Or his torso, all marred and marked with ropy scars. Pidge seemed serious though, and Matt trusted her, so he decides to give it a shot.

The first time he sees Keith, all lean, dark, and nervous, he feels his gut pull with a sudden fondness. The anxiety in him coils tighter, but he's able to push it away.

That night, after dinner, they exchange phone numbers. When Keith holds Shiro's hand, he doesn't flinch at the cold texture of the metal prosthetic. A bit of the nervousness drains from his chest, and though he knows this won't just do away with his insecurities, or even his trepidation at this new relationship (is that what it was, even? Did a date mean they were _dating_?) he knew it was nonetheless a start.

\--

Shiro's first boyfriend after the war is bigger than him. He meets him at the supermarket, actually, when he's buying his eggs. The guy is hulking, but soft-spoken. He asks Shiro, after seeing his copy of _Cat's Cradle_ , if he's read anything else by Vonnegut before, and Shiro replies that: "Yes, actually. I'm a veteran. Slaughterhouse-five was sort of my only saving grace when I got back."

He's trying to be honest and open like his therapist asked of him, but it feels like he's oversharing. The facts spill out like they're being dragged across sandpaper.

But the guy seems intrigued; his eyebrows shoot up, he starts smiling, and he leans on Shiro's shopping cart. "Wow, that's like. Incredible."

Shiro doesn't think so, but he agrees to go out with him, and that's really just that.

\--

A few weeks after their first date, Shiro tells Keith that he has Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. They've only gone out together a few times, but Shiro wants to warn him before he can mess it up, before he can get attached. 

Keith's eyes are wide, like he isn't sure how to answer. Shiro almost takes it as a rejection, his stomach dropping, when he finds his prosthetic hand being held tenderly.

"Well, it's not like I thought you got this playing croquet with the boys in the country, or something."

He snorts, Keith smiles, and he doesn't sense the same perverted curiosity that he gets from other people concerning his arm. In a brave and bold act of relief, Shiro leans down and kisses Keith, right there on his doorstep, like he doesn't have a care in the world. Keith makes a soft, surprised sound and kisses him back. 

\--

Things go well with the first guy he dates, for a while. Shiro prides himself on keeping his symptoms lidded and contained for the most part. He isn't the most experienced, but he's pretty sure that having a panic attack right in front of your new boyfriend is definitely on the "do not do!" side of things. So he hides. Even when the big shadow comes up behind him and he needs to suppress the shudder running down his spine. Even when fingers loop around his wrists, gently but still all-too constraining, and he has to gulp down breaths that feel like they aren't coming.

Until a trigger leads to a misunderstanding.

And everything blows right back up in his face, mocking him for thinking it could _ever_ have been any different for him.

\--

Shiro can tell that Keith has a few issues with trusting others, too. It's in the little things, like the way he seems all reluctant to share things about himself, in the squirrely way he holds himself, like he's been spurned by the world and he's just looking for a single person who will hold him safe from it all. 

For two distrusting, troubled people, they make do pretty well. 

Now boyfriends, Shiro has begun to invite Keith over to his apartment. They've been dating for a few months, all shy hand holding, chaste kisses, and hopeful smiles. Now, in Shiro's bed, they kiss tenderly, gently, back and forth and together as one. Shiro's hands roam and find their way to Keith's waist, finding purchase with a firm squeeze.

Keith's hands roam as well, up and down Shiro's sides, until they barely slip under Shiro's hoodie and come into contact with the scars he hates all too much, and he's plunged very suddenly into a memory and a fear that immediately has him shaking. Trembling. Gone like dust in the wind to a bygone day only he seems tethered to.

\--

His boyfriend takes off his shirt. Shiro shakes, suddenly feeling bare and empty and _naked_ in a way that has him gasping for air. He can't put the lid on the panic, can't keep it from slipping over and overflowing from him. When the hulking figure over him is mumbling, saying something, Shiro can only feel the hands holding him down, can only feel how disgusting, different, and dirty he is.

Like this, he doesn't feel like the cool, mature veteran his boyfriend makes him out to be. He's just a terrified, broken man, who'd been kept in captivity like some animal. Who no longer knows what it truly means to be a human in the rawest and purest sense.

Shiro bolts from the room, all sweaty, wide-eyed, jittery--shaking hard enough that he's sure the nuts and bolts will break from his arm and cause him to fall apart, too.

He makes it home alright, but locks the door after him, and cries on the floor for a solid thirty minutes. When he checks his phone, there are texts from his boyfriend letting him know that what he did was "totally uncool" and that it made him seem "like he didn't want it" and almost like "he was being forced, or something."

They agree to see other people, and Shiro learns dully learns a lesson in the importance of distance in romance.

\--

Back with Keith, Shiro seizes up, and Keith immediately takes his hands away, all kind questions and searching eyes. Shiro bites back his impulse to run away and grits out, "Don't think you want to touch any of that."

Keith asks him why, and all Shiro can do is shake his head, convinced that this beautiful boy will see what a mistake he is, will see that he's much too perfect to be dating a broken and scarred man like him.

Instead, he voices aloud: "War didn't really do me any favors."

Keith nuzzles into his neck, knowing the last thing he truly needs right now is the distance, and shushes him as he shakes. "I'm sure you're perfectly handsome under that sweater too, Shiro. But I won't pressure you."

"Thank you," Shiro squeezes his eyes shut and hugs back. Though he's unconvinced that Keith will actually think that when he gets a good look at him naked, the thought is nice. That he could be handsome, even like this. 

They stay in bed for the rest of the day, watching Netflix, until Keith has to go to work. It's almost domestic, and Shiro is afraid to wish for any more than this, too worried it'll all fall apart if he gets even remotely comfortable with it for more than a second.

His phone chimes with a notification from Keith, and the "<3" is enough to leave him soaring.

\--

There was a girl he dated, too, almost a year after the hurt of the ex boyfriend's betrayal began to fade. She was everything the former wasn't: small, bold, and, well, female. Like an idiot, Shiro thought that would change anything.

\--

Keith stays over at his house more often than not. Allura teases him endlessly for it, and his therapist is inquisitive, but proud he's seemed to find someone to trust. Has he seen you have a panic attack yet? Yes, Shiro replies. Has he experienced any of your nightmares? No, Shiro replies. That, he worries, will be a deal breaker. It was before, so there's no saying that it won't be, now.

His therapist asks him if he trusts Keith enough to ask him to spend the night sometime. It's been a few months, she says, and it's up to him, but it may help him gauge whether or not he can trust Keith with that side of himself more than he already has.

It's uncharted territory, and frankly terrifying, but Shiro agrees. He warns Keith in advance about his nightmares, and of course, _of course_ he understands, he says. How could anyone go through what Shiro did and not have some mental scarring to show for it?

There's a little dirty voice in the back of his mind that sounds suspiciously like his first ex. It says _he's just saying that. He doesn't know. She knew._ and yes. She did know. Someone left him before for his panic, someone left him before for his nightmares.

How can Keith be saintly enough to forgive him for all of these glaring faults? He genuinely can't figure it out, and he isn't sure he wants to find his limit, just in case everything ends up crumbling all around him.

\--

He's under Haggar, being interrogated. The memories are fuzzy, and he can't remember what exactly it is that he's being questioned about, but he stays silent, save for the screams that are torn from him by that evil woman. 

All he knows is _pain_ and the burning sensation that fills his entire body. The groans come without recourse, and he screams when something else touches him, a panic ripping up his throat saying _no, please, please stop, I don't know anything, PLEASE_ when a hand is clamped over his mouth and his eyes shoot open in surprise.

His girlfriend is sitting on him, with a hand over his mouth, and someone is banging on the wall beside his unit telling him to shut the fuck up already. Shiro's entire body fills with shame and guilt, and he rolls off the bed without a word so he can throw up in the bathroom. His entire body shakes and buzzes like a live wire is keeping him moving, and when he returns, his girlfriend's back is to him.

Shiro whispers an "I'm sorry," to her for waking her up, but he gets no response.

She's fast asleep.

Shiro keeps himself awake for the rest of the night, too afraid to fall into another nightmare, and shakes with exhaustion by the time the sun comes up.

\--

The night Keith stays over, the same nagging fear pulls at him mercilessly. Should he sleep with his boyfriend and risk the possibility of nightmares or keep himself awake to prevent this wonderful boy from seeing him become the wreck he truly is under all his bravado?

The longer he thinks on it, the more he realizes that he _wants_ a good connection with Keith. He wants that honesty, that openness, that vulnerability he's never had. So badly. So on the couch that night, with Keith in his arms, he runs his fingers in circles on the soft, smaller hands of this fantastic man and tells him, in hushed tones, that he's sorry if he wakes him up in the night.

"Really, if I start screaming, shake me awake, and I'll be fine. You can go back to sleep, and I'll do some breathing exercises to calm myself down. I get if you think it's a deal-breaker--"

"Shiro, no. If you have nightmares, I won't just leave you to them, alright? You take care of me all the time, let me take care of you."

They kiss. And even though Shiro has no nightmares that night, he knows they're right around the bend, waiting for him. He makes Keith breakfast in the morning and they kiss by the counter-tops. When fingers trail under his shirt and trace along the scars, Shiro only flinches a little bit, and Keith leans back to look up into his eyes, to tell him he's beautiful like he really, truly is.

Shiro doesn't deserve this, knows it won't last, but God he wants it to.

\--

Eventually, his next nightmare does come, and a lot sooner than he'd hope. He goes from experiencing his days as a POW to shuddering awake with a gasp to hands on his face. "That's it. Come back to me, Takashi. I've got you, you're safe. It's just me. Keith."

He rocks in place and croaks like a dying man. "K-Keith? Don't leave, please, don't leave."

"I'm not leaving you, I won't leave you. I'm here for you, Shiro. To stay."

He starts sobbing, stark relief daring him to hope, so desperately, that he _means_ it.

"I love you," he pants, like it'll kill him if he doesn't say it.

But instead of pulling away in disgust, Keith rubs his shoulders and back and kisses his face where the tear tracks dry. "I love you too."

"I'm sorry. You didn't sign up for th-this."

Keith huffs, but doesn't move away. "I signed up for you, Shiro. We're in this together. No matter what."

Another tear escapes him, and he takes in a shuddering breath. It feels like the first time he's been able to breathe in years. Possibly in his life. "God, I love you so much. What did I do to deserve you?"

"I should be asking you that, pretty boy. You think you can get back to sleep okay?"

With these gentle hands, Shiro knows he can do anything.

Though his entire body is still taught with tension, he's able to rest against Keith until sleep takes him. The fear his exes instilled in him about relationships is still there, lingering, but Shiro's starting to feel like he belongs with someone.

They're both a little bent and rough around the edges, both a little complicated and mixed up, but they have each other.

Shiro has never had someone like he's had Keith, and he knows the feeling is mutual.

With that understanding, he lets himself fall back asleep, confident that in the morning, Keith will still be there, and neither his scars nor his demons will change that.


End file.
